Kellogg—Removal of the Winnebago 
27 
there had previously been a large Indian village. By the latter 
part of May the dragoons reached Dodgeville, whence they pro¬ 
ceeded at once to Fourth Lake, where they built a camp on the 
northwestern shore near a great spring which they named for the 
spring Camp Beliefontaine. They also built another on the Wis¬ 
consin Kiver, naming it Camp Knox. Their instructions were to 
observe a mild but firm attitude towards the removing Indians, 
and to range up and down the streams to see that all the Indians 
crossed the Wisconsin. On the fifteenth of May thirty lodges of 
the tribesmen gathered at Four Lakes ready to cross to Sauk 
Prairie. They held a grand medicine dance somewhere near the 
present city of Madison, and performed ceremonies of removal. 
^‘On the eve of their departure they extinguished all their old 
fires, and kindled a new one procured by the friction of two sticks 
of wood, which they ‘hoped would burn clear and make them 
happy,’ ” wrote their agent Gratiot. He then gave them some 
few presents, after which their canoes, wigwams, and effects, al¬ 
ready brought up the chain of the Four Lakes, were loaded on 
to wagons and transported to the shore of Wisconsin Kiver. Man 
Eater’s village was left behind as the chief himself was at Fort 
Winnebago; Spotted Arm also was tardy in removing his band. 
June 10th Dodge himself visited the camp on Fourth Lake and 
went thence to Fort Winnebago, where he learned that sixty lodges 
of tribesmen were still left on the eastern branches of Rock Kiver. 
Kinzie had meanwhile sent out word that the annuities would 
be paid July 1st at the agency house at the portage. Unfortunate¬ 
ly this payment was the occasion for a disgraceful orgy. Whisky 
dealers brought in a vast quantity of liquor, and opened it on 
private ground, where it could not be seized by the government. 
Several Indians were killed in drunken rows, and most of the silver 
paid them by the government passed into the hands of the liquor 
dealers and traders, so that the Indians were worse rather than 
better off for their annuities. 
Dodge thought it necessary to keep the troops in the ceded ter¬ 
ritory, being certain that many of the Indians would return to 
Rock River waters after the annuity payment. Whirling Thunder 
and his band, encouraged by the traders John Dougherty, Oliver 
Armel, and Stephen Mack, returned to their old village. Lieuten¬ 
ant T. B. Wheelock, of the dragoons, followed them to Sugar 
River and arrested the white men and carried them and the In¬ 
dian band to the Fourth Lake camp. Dodge being notified by 
